Oral contraceptive (OC) users living in El Paso, Texas were interviewed
to assess motivations for patronizing a United States clinic or a Mexican pharmacy with over-the-counter (OTC) pills and to determine which women were likely to use the OTC option.
The experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies were compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often pay nothing.
532 clinic users and 514 pharmacy users were surveyed about background characteristics, motivations for choosing their oral contraception source, and
satisfaction with this source. For more information, please see the Border Contraceptive Access Study website.

Oral contraceptive (OC) users living in El Paso, Texas were interviewed
to assess motivations for patronizing a United States clinic or a Mexican pharmacy with over-the-counter (OTC) pills and to determine which women were likely to use the OTC option.
The experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies were compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often pay nothing.
532 clinic users and 514 pharmacy users were surveyed about background characteristics, motivations for choosing their oral contraception source, and
satisfaction with this source. For more information, please see the Border Contraceptive Access Study website.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
Oral contraception (OC) currently requires a prescription. It has been suggested that this requirement should be eliminated. In the debate over removing the prescription
requirement, two of the questions that need to be addressed are why women might prefer pharmacy access instead of obtaining pills at clinics, and who would take advantage of
the pharmacy option if it were made available. So far, most of the evidence on these points has come from studies of women residing in countries other than the United States or from answers to hypothetical questions addressed to women in this country. To explore these questions, this study was conducted along the United States-Mexico border, where women who live in the United States are afforded an unusual opportunity: crossing the border, they can purchase over-the-counter (OTC) hormonal contraception at pharmacies for a reasonable price -- approximately US$5 per cycle. The motivations and experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies are compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often
pay nothing.

Study Design:
The sample was recruited from El Paso without stratification or primary sampling units.

Sample:
1046 El Paso resident OC users aged 18 to 44 years were recruited. Some clinic users were recruited from the major family planning providers in El Paso. However, recruiting pharmacy users at pharmacies in Ciudad Juárez proved to be impractical, so virtually the entire pharmacy user sample and a considerable proportion of the clinic sample were recruited through announcements, flyers, presentations at local community centers, and referrals. Participants resided in 46 different zip codes, 16 of which had more than 20 participants. The sample was not stratified by level of education or socioeconomic status; nevertheless, it did not typically include women who used health insurance or personal funds to obtain prescriptions from private physicians in the United States, then purchased OCs at pharmacies in Mexico.

Time Method:
Longitudinal

Mode of Data Collection:
face-to-face interview

Description of Variables:
Each of the five datasets include verbatim text responses from the participants. Many of these responses are in Spanish.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: